Massive Spying Cover-up Challenged in ACLU Lawsuit

Posted on June 6, 2010
Share:

 By Kenneth J. Theisen 

One of the most closely guarded secrets of the U.S. war of terror is the fact that the U.S. government is still intercepting billions of emails, phone calls, financial transactions, and other communications of not only those overseas, but also within the U.S. 
 
This was revealed by the New York Times during the years of the Bush regime, but most Americans assumed this stopped shortly after Obama came into office. 

 
But people need to remember that Obama voted to give the power to the national security state to spy on us. In 2008, while still a senator, he supported the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) which virtually guaranteed that massive surveillance would continue. In justifying his vote he stated, “Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program.” But instead of monitoring the program, the Obama administration is monitoring our communications.
 
But now the Obama administration is facing a challenge to the continued secrecy surrounding this massive spying. On June 3rd, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the government for the release of documents about the implementation of the FAA. The ACLU describes the FAA as an unconstitutional spying law that gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to collect Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls in dragnet fashion, without a warrant and without suspicion of wrongdoing. (See http://www.aclu.org/national-security/foia-complaint-documents-related-faa-implementation for more information on the lawsuit.)

"Despite being in operation for nearly two years, the American public is largely in the dark about how the controversial FISA Amendments Act has been implemented in practice," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The public has a right to know how the government is using, and possibly abusing, an intrusive surveillance power that implicates the privacy and speech rights of all U.S. citizens and residents."

The ACLU’s lawsuit seeks to enforce a November 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records related to the government’s interpretation and implementation of the FAA, including reports and assessments mandated by the law concerning how the FAA is being used, how many Americans are affected by this sweeping spying regime and what safeguards are in place to prevent abuse of Americans’ privacy rights. The government has not yet released any of the records requested, and the lawsuit asks a federal judge to order it to do so. The lawsuit further alleges that the requested records are needed to enable informed public debate about whether the FAA – which expires in 2012 – should be repealed, amended or extended.

The FOIA lawsuit was filed against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, The Department of Justice, National Security Agency and the Department of Defense in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In July 2008, the ACLU and the NYCLU filed a landmark lawsuit to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the FAA on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose work requires them to engage in sensitive and sometimes privileged telephone and e-mail communications with colleagues, clients, journalistic sources, witnesses, experts, foreign government officials and victims of human rights abuses located outside the United States. But in a classic catch-22 situation a district court dismissed the case, ruling that the plaintiffs could not challenge the secret surveillance law because they could not prove that their own communications had been monitored under it because that was a secret. The ACLU and NYCLU appealed that ruling and have asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the case. The groups argued that, because of the secret nature of the FAA, the law may never be subject to judicial review at all if Americans are prohibited from challenging it unless they can show that their own communications have been collected.

"It is unfortunate that once again we have to sue over the secrecy that continues to shroud so much of our government’s work," said NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn.

 

While running for the presidency, Obama frequently promised that the secrecy of the Bush regime would not be practiced in an Obama administration. But that was and is a lie. Since coming into office, the Obama administration, through its lawyers, has repeatedly gone to court to cover up not only the crimes of the Bush regime, but the continuation of those crimes under Obama. It has fought the release of torture photos. It has refused to release documents detailing torture, spying, kidnapping (known as extraordinary rendition), assassination, etc. It has gone to court to dismiss lawsuits that would reveal even further the true nature of the crimes of the U.S. government. The Obama administration is about as transparent as the BP oil polluting the Gulf of Mexico. If the administration cared about real transparency, the ACLU would not have to bring its latest Freedom of Information Lawsuit. Just what is the administration covering up?

Leave a Reply